The primary purpose of phone number recognition components is to recognise a phone number in a piece of text and identify it as such. Further enhancements include being able to use that phone number to make a call, which may involve cleaning up the format of the recognised phone number to put it into a proper format taking into account country codes etc to be able to make the call. Phone number recognition can be used in the context of a peer to peer telephone system of the type described in WO 2005/009019. In this system, a plurality of end users can be connected for communication purposes via a communications structure. The communications structure is substantially decentralised with regard to communication route switching therein for connecting the end users. That is, the end users can establish their own communication routes through the structure based an exchange of one or more authorisation certificates (user identity certificates—UIC) to acquire access to the structure. The structure includes an administration arrangement issuing the certificates to the end users. One such phone system exists under the trade name SKYPE™.
Phone number recognition can be used in other contexts. Automated recognition of phone numbers in a piece of text is not a simple matter. The text may include various numerical or alphanumeric sequences which are not phone or fax numbers. It is important that any automated phone number recognition component is capable of correctly identifying only phone numbers. Moreover, if the phone number is to be used for calling, it is necessary to further identify the location of the caller, the location of the phone number to be called and the necessary country codings to be used to put the phone number into a proper format for making a call.